Police Law Blog European Decisions Statutory Materials

€12,000 for unnecessary and disproportionate police use of Taser (and subsequent failure to investigate this)

In Znakovas v Lithuania [2019] ECHR 820, the European Court of Human Rights held that where police officers used a Taser to subdue an arrested person being taken in a police car to a police station and there was then a subsequent failure to investigate the force used, both matters amounted to a breach of […]

Sexual assault investigation into a child with learning difficulties not a breach of article 3

In R (AB) v Chief Constable of Hampshire Constabulary [2019] EWHC 3461 (Admin), the Divisional Court considered a claim on behalf of a boy with severe learning and communication disabilities, that police had failed properly to investigate what appeared to be a disclosure by him of a sexual assault during a stay at in respite care. […]

‘Mixed’ police claims: Court of Appeal confirms QOCS protection is not automatic

Last year, I wrote a post on this blog discussing a High Court judgment which held that qualified one-way costs shifting (‘QOCS’) protection does not apply automatically in proceedings where a claimant is advancing both a claim for damages for personal injury and a claim other than a claim for damages for personal injury (a […]

The recoverability of inquest costs in civil actions

The case of Fullick v The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2019] EWHC 1941 (QB) concerned an appeal of a Deputy Master’s order that the MET Commissioner pay the claimants’ costs in the sum of £88,356.22, following the settlement of a contemplated civil claim for damages for breach of Article 2 of the European Convention […]

Domestic violence falls within Article 3, €20,000 for failure to investigate

In Volodina v Russia (Application No 41261/17); [2019] ECHR 539 the European Court of Human Rights has held that domestic violence falls within the description of inhuman or degrading treatment for the purposes of Article 3, such that where the police receive a complaint of this, they are likely to have an obligation to launch an […]